Two Cal State Long Beach professors were awarded a $100,000 grant to fund and carry out research on Lesson Study, an increasingly popular form of professional development for teachers that uses collaboration to create lesson plans.
Lesson Study is a professional development method for teachers, according to CSULB professor and co-author of the research proposal Hiromi Masunaga. Through Lesson Study, teachers discuss and plan a single lesson, then dissect that lesson plan again after using it.
100Kin10 — a national group of funders working together to fund teacher preparation in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields — provided the University of Chicago with funding to support a project that will develop a “gold standard” for Lesson Study research, according to CSULB Dean of the College of Education Marquita Grenot-Scheyer.
With 100Kin10’s funding, the University of Chicago received research proposals from universities across the nation to develop this “gold standard,” and the CSULB proposal won a grant.
“We won the competition because the University of Chicago thought it was a strong design and wanted to work with us on it,” CSULB professor Linda Symcox said.
As a part of their research, Masunaga and Symcox will ask teachers to observe their peers teach the plan itself so that they could offer constructive criticism.
The duo’s experimental study design will soon be used in seven different elementary schools in the Little Lake City School district in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., according to Symcox.
Half of the teachers participating in their research will receive Lesson Study sessions in mathematics over the course of one academic year, while the other half will not, according to Symcox. The two groups will be compared in categories, such as student engagement and content learned.
After the study’s information has been gathered, the University of Chicago will then conduct an in-depth analysis of the findings, according to Symcox and Masunaga.
Masunaga, who has taught in Japan and used Lesson Study, said the practice was beneficial to her and that she thinks using it in more American schools would result in noticeable benefits.
“I learned a lot from communicating with a lot of great educators,” she said. “It was really safe and warm and supporting. I felt very engaged by participating in that manner.”
Masunaga and Symcox’s study comes on the heels of the Common Core Standards, a new, nationally set academic standard that was created after observing how nations leading in mathematics and science teach those subjects in school, Masunaga said. Forty-six states have adopted the Common Core Standards, which emphasize critical thinking and problem solving, not just finding the right answer, Symcox said.
“In the U.S. we’ve always been in hurry to get an answer,” Symcox said. “Now this says, wait a minute, it’s more important how a student gets the answer than the answer itself.”
According to Masunaga, their study could help schools nationwide to better meet the Common Core Standards.
Symcox said her and Masunaga’s study also addresses a key issue in teaching: that teachers usually don’t get to watch other teachers teach.
“If you think of a teacher, they’re alone in a classroom with 35 kids all day, and they rarely have the opportunity to see their peers teaching,” Symcox said. “The opportunity to have a professional learning community in your school, that’s a very powerful experience that is not part of the normal school day.”
Grenot-Scheyer said that Symcox and Masunaga deserve recognition for the work they produced.
“The faculty members deserve a ton of credit given the work that they’ve done,” she said. “The fact that Little Lake wanted to join us in this endeavor is indicative of our strength in the field,” she said. “I’m very proud of the work of our faculty.”
